


I'm Willing to Try

by RiverWritesFanfic



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 19:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13196607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverWritesFanfic/pseuds/RiverWritesFanfic
Summary: The Cauldron has never been kind to Lucien. He has known a life of deprivation and loss, and even now, after the war with Hybern has been won and he has met his mate, he can't bring himself to dare to hope for a happy ending. And maybe it's for the best, as Elain is still recovering from being taken from her fiance in the human world and couldn't possibly be looking for romance right now. But Elain has always been the hopeful type, and she feels that there is a strong possibility that she and Lucien could develop a friendship, and then, in time, something...more.





	I'm Willing to Try

** I’m Willing to Try **

            Lucien looked out the window at where Elain was happily tending her garden. Beside her, Azriel was lounging with his dark wings spread wide to catch the sun. Every time Lucien saw them together he had to intentionally shove away his jealousy, had to remind himself that though Elain was his mate, she was not _his_ , and she could spend her time with whoever she liked.

            And really, he didn’t find remembering that to be terribly difficult. He just wanted to be included in that “whoever.” Ever since he had gotten back from the Spring Court, Lucien had found himself constantly passing by the window, looking out at Elain and thinking that he ought to go sit with her. Say hi. Introduce himself again now that she was feeling better.

            But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was petrified that he would mess it up, or that as soon as she became a light in his life, something would snuff her out, just like everything else he had ever loved. Better to just leave his mateship as a distant, floating thing, a hazy future promise built on potential. Better to live forever with a thread of hope than to try and have that thread cut and burned.

            “You know, standing around and staring at her borders on creep territory.”

            Feyre’s voice made Lucien jump. She was standing behind him, hair in its usual braid over her shoulder, lips twisted in a wry smile.

            He blushed. “I wasn’t staring.” What a stupid response. That was exactly the sort of thing he was afraid of saying in front of Elain.

            Feyre rolled her eyes. They were Nesta’s eyes, not Elain’s, and for that Lucien found himself grateful. It made it easier for him to separate his friend from his mate, made him less likely to do what Feyre said just because she made doe eyes at him.

            The High Lady of the Night Court came over to stand beside him, also looking down at her sister and the spymaster in the garden. “Why don’t you just go down and talk to her?” Feyre asked. “Aren’t you hundreds of years old? An emissary to the High Lords of Prythian? Charmer of scores of women?”

            “It hasn’t been that many,” Lucien muttered, feeling ashamed of having done so now that he had found his mate. It was an unreasonable feeling of shame, he knew, but Elain was so young, so gentle, that sometimes he felt like it wasn’t fair that he had lived so much life before finding her. He wished he could be as new and pure as she was.

            “My point is,” Feyre continued, “That you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to her. Especially Elain, of all people. She doesn’t bite.”

            Lucien looked sideways at his friend. “She stabbed the king of Hybern in the neck.”

            “Okay, well, we all have our moments.” That made Lucien laugh. Then, from down in the garden, Azriel turned his head up and peered at the window, eyes fixed directly on Lucien. He felt his cheeks get hot again. “He is our spymaster,” Feyre said, seeing Lucien’s blush. She grinned. “Wouldn’t be much use if he couldn’t tell when he was being watched.” She waved down at Azriel.

            He smiled, and then, to Lucien’s horror, he turned to Elain and said something, causing her to look up at Lucien as well.

            Their eyes met and Lucien froze, limbs locking. For a moment, Elain seemed startled too, but then, gingerly, she smiled at him and waved her fingers. Nervously, Lucien waved back.

            “You’re either really cute or really pathetic,” Feyre said. “I’ll be honest, I can’t decide which.”

            “If this is your idea of relationship counseling, you’re shit at it,” Lucien retorted. Feyre elbowed him and he shoved her, making both of them laugh.

            Lucien looked out the window again to see that Azriel had vanished. He barely had time to fully register that the spymaster was gone before the door to the room opened and the man himself came in.

            “She’s been waiting for you to talk to her, you know,” Azriel said, straight to the point, leaning against the wall with his wings arched comfortably out to the sides.

            “She has?” Lucien asked, surprised.

            Azriel nodded. Lucien turned and looked out the window, gazing down to where Elain was sitting, still looking up at the window. She smiled and motioned for him to come to her.

            “You’re her mate,” Azriel said. “And she’s a lady. It’s your job to court her.”

            “I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about traditional romance.”

            Azriel laughed. “I don’t. Those are Elain’s words.”

            They talked about him? He supposed that shouldn’t have been all that surprising. The Inner Circle certainly gossiped enough about each other, usually more or less good-naturedly, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to think they chattered about their guests. But what did Elain say about him? What was her perception of him after weeks of awkward hallway passings and dinner table conversations with the Inner Circle present?

            “Azriel’s right,” Feyre said. “Elain is a fine lady. She expects to be pursued, not to do the pursuing. So get your indecisive ass down there and start up a conversation.”

            Lucien’s cheeks were hot. “Can anyone ensure my safety? Or will Nesta storm down like a wraith of death if I so much as put one foot on the same lawn as Elain?”

            Feyre snorted. “I’ll keep an eye on her. I think she’s in Bryaxis’s library anyway, so it’s unlikely we’ll see her this afternoon, if she comes back today at all.” Then she shoved Lucien. “Enough excuses. You’ve been back from the Spring Court for nearly a month. Go talk to your mate.”

            The way Feyre and Azriel were watching him made him feel like a child, but Lucien made his way out of the room and down to the garden nonetheless.

            His thoughts churned as he made his way down the stairs and to the door. What was he going to say? He and Elain had barely talked alone since his return. There had been a brief conversation, washing the blood from their hands after the battle with Hybern, but that talk had been tired, frazzled, and short. He had asked if she was okay, and even though she had said yes, he knew it was only half true. She had said she was looking forward to returning to the Night Court, and she hoped that they could get to know each other once everything settled. And then she had said that she was tired and was going to bed.

            And that had been that. Sometimes he would say something at meals that would make her laugh, making his chest warm, but other than that they had talked little. He still felt like an outsider here, like a visitor, and he often made a point to be out in Velaris as much as possible, sometimes sleeping in the House of Wind just to give them all space. The only person he actually felt like he could talk to was Feyre, but she was busy, and popular, and Lucien wasn’t certain how he was supposed to strike up a conversation with the mate he barely knew when he could hardly bother one of his best friends for conversation. He was, all things considered, a total disaster.

            He stepped outside. The air was warm, but it felt different than it had in the Spring Court. In Tamlin’s realm, warm air had a heaviness to it, thick with pollen and the smell of flowers and the humidity of inclement rain. Here, the seaside air was clear and light. Pleasant. The sun brought out the full spectrum of color in Elain’s garden, making the landscape vibrant with pinks and whites and yellows. How strange it was, that the sun might be so prominent in the Night Court.

            Elain was around the corner from the door. As Lucien rounded the buttress that concealed her, she turned to him, and his heart stuttered. She always looked radiant, and every time he saw her was like watching the first flower of spring bloom. Of course, living in the Spring Court had long since robbed that event of its wonder, but with Elain it was like things were new again.

            She smiled. “So you finally got up the courage to come down.”

            Lucien blushed. He felt like a schoolchild again, when females were a mystery and every conversation felt like a string of clumsily attached mistakes. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

            She laughed, and it was like the very light of the sun was singing. “You consider yourself so irksome?” she teased.

            “Well, and I feared your sister,” he admitted. “Her retribution was sure to be more terrifying than even that of Hybern.”

            That made Elain laugh again. “Nesta? She only seeks to protect me. But she will listen if I tell her she needn’t worry.”

            Lucien raised one eyebrow. “Really? She would leave me alone just like that?”

            “Well, perhaps not leave you alone entirely,” Elain admitted. “But she was the same way with…with Grayson.” She tripped over his name. “Until she realized that his intentions were true and his prospects were stable. Then she relented, as long as I assured her that I was happy and safe.”

            “Unfortunately, I don’t know if my prospects could be deemed particularly stable,” Lucien said, then internally kicked himself for making such a bitter joke.

            “What do you mean?” Elain asked, cocking her head in a way that shook a few strands of honey-brown hair loose from her gardening hat. “You’ve got a place here in Night Court with us.”

            Something in Lucien stuttered at that. Had she assumed that he would be here with her? Was that what she wanted?

“You’re right, of course,” he said, saving his true feelings on the matter for when they were—if they were—in closer confidence with one another. “It’s just all very new. It still feels unstable to me.”

            Elain smiled. “So imagine how it must feel for me and Nesta. At least you have always been fae.”

            “I suppose that’s true,” Lucien conceded. However, it seemed to him that Feyre had integrated seamlessly into the Night Court, and with that so too had her sisters. It was possibly because, unlike Lucien, they had no past history with the members of Rhysand’s Inner Circle. But for Lucien…it was odd. Odd for him to have to get to know them anew. Odd for them to have to get to know him anew. The Inner Circle had known each other for hundreds of years, years when Lucien had only known them as demons and nightmares. Feyre had done a great deal to make sure he was treated well, and never for a minute had he felt that she didn’t want him around, but it wasn’t enough to make Lucien believe he was truly welcome here the way she was, the way her sisters were. He knew that one day he was going to have to leave.

            Elain shifted her weight and patted a patch of grass beside her. “Come, sit,” she said.

            Hesitantly, Lucien did. He looked over her shoulder at the cluster of pink and white blooms she was fluffing. “What are you planting?” he asked.

            “Flowers,” she replied coyly.

            Lucien went to roll his eyes and then caught himself. “A fair response, my lady. How silly of me to ask.”

            That sent Elain giggling again. Lucien was glad to see her laughing after spending all of those weeks watching her wander, hollow-eyed, through the corridors of the House of Wind. “They’re gladiolus flowers,” Elain said, smiling fondly at them. “They don’t like the cold, you know. So you have to wait until winter has fully passed before planting them.” Her fingers trailed slowly over the petals. “In the human world, they wouldn’t have bloomed yet. They would just be little bulbs, and it would be another couple of months before their colors came out to play. But they are just like everything else here. Almost the same, but…but just different enough.” Elain snapped her hand down as though to wake herself. “I apologize,” she said softly. “I began to ramble.”

            “No need to apologize,” Lucien said. “I’m happy to listen to you talk.”

            “That’s good. In fact, I wondered if I might not be telling you things you already knew. After all, having lived in the Spring Court for so many years, I thought it possible that you knew everything there was to know about flowers.”

            If someone had told Lucien back when he had arrived on Tamlin’s doorstep that he would one day meet his mate, and she would love flowers as much as most males loved liquor and sex, he certainly would have spent those Spring Court years devoted to learning every species in the manor’s vast gardens. As it was, he had never actually had any particular motivation to learn what flowers grew in Tamlin’s garden, and he could tell Elain almost nothing about them.

            He struggled to come up with an explanation, but when Elain looked at him, her eyes were bright with amusement. “Or perhaps not,” she said wryly. “As you are, after all, still a male.”

            “That doesn’t exclude me from an interest in flowers.”

            “It doesn’t,” Elain agreed. “But I knew it meant it was less likely.”

            “If ever the Night Court’s relations with the Spring Court improve, I will take you there in a heartbeat,” Lucien promised. Then he realized that he was making assumptions, and he hurried to correct himself. “Or, ah, I will arrange a trip for you with the company of your choosing.”

            Elain smiled. “I would like that,” she said. “And I don’t see any reason yet why you wouldn’t be among my company of choosing.”

            Lucien felt like a weight lifted slightly from his chest. He tried not to let himself feel too hopeful, but it sounded like she was considering giving him a chance.

            A comfortable silence settled in. Elain trimmed and tended her gladiolas as Lucien watched, trying to come up with the right thing to say. Then, Elain sighed and set down her small set of shears. “Lucien, I must admit—I don’t really understand mateship. I don’t understand why it exists, and I don’t know why it was thrust upon me so soon after my world had already been completely shattered.”

            The weight that had begun to lift suddenly crashed back onto Lucien’s heart, more painful than before. Of course Elain was not interested in a mate right now. How could she be? He had already known. This was simply confirmation.

            “But after getting to know the other fae of the Night Court, and after seeing the way Feyre is with her mate, and the way Feyre is with _you_ …” Elain paused, and Lucien waited, hardly breathing. “I am not ready to be seriously romantically involved right now. It is still too soon for me, too soon after Graysen, too soon after becoming fae. But…I do like you, Lucien. You do not seem like you are going to jump me and ravish me in my garden.”

            That surprised Lucien. His lips twitched with amusement. “Did you think I was going to?”

            Elain blushed, not the faint pink of a lady as it had been before, but a deep, chagrinned scarlet. “Well…I mean, you certainly didn’t seem…but I heard little snippets of mates, and what they’re like, and you must understand that I simply didn’t _know_ —”

            Lucien laughed, cutting her off. “Elain, I am not offended. But rest assured, I would do no such thing. You are safe with me.”

            “That’s what Feyre said,” Elain admitted.

            “You asked her?”

            Elain busied herself with arranging some of the plant stems so that her face was hidden. “Well, not directly if I should be worried about that, of course. What I asked her was why you kept away. When you were keeping your distance, I didn’t know if perhaps that was better. I thought maybe Nesta was right, and it was better we be kept apart. What did I know? I had locked myself away while she got to know everyone. I thought maybe she had some knowledge that I did not.”

            She certainly had some very definitive misconceptions.

            “But Feyre said very kind things, you know,” Elain continued. “She said that you were trying to respect my space, but that you were normally very personable. I think she’s rooting for you.”

            Lucien made a mental note to ask Feyre about all of the kind things she had said later. “I am grateful she is trying to counter Nesta.”

            “They have always been opposites,” Elain said. “But, Lucien, what I mean to say with all of this is that I may not understand what it means to be mates with someone. I may not understand what it is like to be a fae that has had three, four, five hundred years of life experience. And I may not know you very well at all yet. But when I see how happy Feyre and Rhysand are, I think, how could I deny myself a chance at that kind of joy?

            “I cannot promise romance right now. But I also see no reason that we should not spend this time getting to know each other.” She turned from her flowers to look him in the eye. “If there is even a chance that this might turn into something, well…I’m willing to try.”

            Lucien felt like his heart was pounding too loud, and that every beat shattered his thoughts, driving them apart before he could find something coherent to say. This was…good. In fact, it was more than he could have hoped for. Lucien studied his mate’s soft, lovely face and thought about how different they were. Perhaps his fear of messing up his mateship had been dooming it before it began. Where he had seen chance and shied away from it, afraid to break it, she saw the chance and sought to foster it. Really, it was just like her. The gardener. The one who tended and cultivated. Of course she would see a seed of possibility and seek to grow it.

            Unfortunately, Lucien had never really had a green thumb. But he could learn. If his mate was willing to try, then so was he.

            “As am I,” he said, and he and Elain smiled at one another.

            Then he heard a rattle against the pavement beyond the front of the house. Elain fixed her eyes over his shoulder. “That’s Nesta’s carriage returning,” Elain said. “You best go. Let me talk to her, or she’ll come over here and flay you alive before I get the chance.”

            Lucien stood. “Then I will take my leave. Perhaps we could have tea together later in the week?”

            “I would like that,” Elain said. Lucien gave a bowed to her, making her giggle again, and headed inside. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Azriel emerge from the shadow of a nearby tree and settle in next to Elain again. He had been watching them. Of course he had.

            But in that moment, Lucien did not mind. With possibility shining before him, he felt like he was glowing inside and out.


End file.
